Two cultures
a fairy tale
A very long time ago, in a faraway land, lived Artemis and Orville, two siblings, good, wholesome children, separated early in life by a natural disaster. They grew to be young people of great charisma, and each founded a kingdom of his own, on opposite sides of a mountain.
Orville founded the kingdom of Oralia, and Artemis founded the kingdom of Auralia. The mountain was called by both of them the Mount of Goodwill.
Both kingdoms thrived over the ensuing decades, and both were filled with good-hearted people, civic-minded people, engaged and cooperative people who wanted deeply to be of service to their communities and to every person they encountered. And as these kingdoms developed without communication, they had slightly different cultures.
In Oralia, the custom in conversation was to entertain and to edify. They cultivated ability as raconteurs, as poets, as weavers of narratives, even as stand-up comics. People loved to get together and listen to each other’s stories. Friends would hone their wisdom into a crafted message and deliver it as a gift, in pairs or in larger settings.
In Auralia, the custom in conversation was to listen. They understood that the gift of attention is healing, nurturing, and affirming. The skills that they cultivated were as active and caring listeners. In gatherings and in get-togethers over the back fence, everyone who spoke cherished the opportunity to pour out his heart, to think out loud, to make optimal use of the gift that was offered to him by his attentive interlocutor.
Artemis and Orville were both wizened sages when another disaster struck, an earthquake that opened a passable route between Auralia and Oralia. It happened shortly thereafter that Artemis met her brother Orville for the first time since their childhood.
Let us imagine what happens when Orville and Artemis meet, a blissful reunion of siblings, each pouring out love to the other in the way s/he knows best. It is Orville who does the talking, and Artemis does the listening. Not exclusively, of course, but there is much more in this direction than the other. Artemis is lovingly listening as Orville lovingly regales her brother with edifying lessons from the interceding decades.
For the first day, they are both enthralled, offering their respective gifts to the other. Only gradually do they each realize that the gift is not landing as they expected. Orville wonders why Artemis smiles warmly instead of laughing at his jokes. Artemis wonders why Orville does not take advantage of her loving, nonjudgmental attention to open his heart and bare his feelings.
Each is inwardly curious. Neither says anything. Can their love for one another bridge the divide in their culture and help them through their very different expectations?
Orville begins to lose patience with Artemis’s introspective style of communication. It seems morbid to him. Artemis starts to judge Orville as shallow and incapable of empathy because he is out of touch with his own inner self.
The situation is not, however, symmetric. Artemis’s framework of understanding can expand. If her soul is generous, she can come to understand her brother’s behavior, can even reach out to him and invite a deeper connection. It is up to Artemis to build the bridge that will, in the fullness of time, come to reunite these siblings in love.
Susan Piver presents 12 short videos, Introduction To The Enneagram, which explain 9 core personality types, with 3 subtypes each, one of which is atypical for that type.
https://openheartproject.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram-2/
That sounds complicated and byzantine, but it is not. It is actually a great simplifier to see these patterns. there is risk to "typing" another, which we will tend to do, anyway when we engage in the conceptual framework.
It is very useful going forward.
This fable hits on the reason why it is useful, and raises the question of what kind of person can do what kinds of things in life.
The Enneagram seems to be an ancient pattern, recognized in the 20th century to also apply to human characteristics, first used that way by Gurdjieff.
Helen Palmer wrote the first Enneagram book in 1991, which I missed, due to being very busy with career and kids. An old friend recommended it, saying that when you see your type it is scary or shocking. He is a type 5, the observer. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-enneagram-understanding-yourself-and-the-others-in-your-life_helen-palmer/248072/item/10385225/
I read it 3 times, including with a yellow highlighter, and found it very useful, but had a hard time holding a big enough mental set, as it is a bit dry and abstract to me, though clear in every detail.
I later became familiar with more Enneagram books, and find the much slimmer Buddhist Enneagram by Susan Piver to mesh well into human understanding, with the content being very humanly angaging One need not be Buddhist to "get" it. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/buddhist-enneagram--nine-paths-to-warriorship/37101490/item/54006126/#edition=73633662&idiq=85433731
I don't recommend the Christian Enneagram, which is clearly well intentioned, but spends so much effort assuring Christians that it is ok to consider this framework of understanding, and that it is not Satanic at all, and so on.
That's a pep talk I did not need, myself.